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Rating: 
Summary: The best general guide on valuation available
Review: An outstanding book from the high-priest of valuation. Covers all major techniques and applications. However, not all that suitable for beginners or as an introductory text since some of the (slightly advanced) material is presented in a fairly condensed manner. Readers with a little experience in the area or students who have taken at least one finance course and understand the fundamentals of financial economics should find this book extremely useful, though. Great as a reference guide, too.
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Summary: CFrAud
Review: Apologies to Mr Damodaran, further to my last 'scathing' review, I have since discovered that Mr Damodaran has conveniently posted the entire Solutions manual to this book on his website.
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Summary: Garbage In, Garbage Out
Review: Good work, if only it was reliable... In a discipline where accuracy is so important, I am amazed it has been selling so well for so long. The book has plenty of formulae mistakes that make its reading and comprehension really difficult and painfully time-consuming as you need to go through correcting all those errors and read the chapters again and again. Still, even after such an arduous work, you end up not being 100% sure that what you have learnt is correct. Wiley should long ago have retired this edition from circulation and then market a new, thoroughly corrected one. Of course, those (many) unlucky readers who have bought this terrible (paperback) edition should receive a new one for free as soon as it is available. I feel I have been cheated!
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Summary: A flexible approach to valuing any asset
Review: I'm a CEO of a high-growth tech company and former Goldman Sach banker. I've earned a JD and MBA from NYU. I've read countless books on valuation. I believe that this book offers one of the most flexible approaches to valuing assets that I have yet encountered. Its primary objective is guiding the reader in valuing any asset, from an option on a company that manufactures high-tech drilling equipment to a neighborhood lemonade stand. It is intentionally simple, but simplistic. And that is why it is so valuable. ... This book teaches bare bones valuation... the bread and butter of valuation. Actually, it covers all the topics ...[giving] the same cursory attention that venture capitalist and investment bankers do... that is to say, that they deserve. One note of caution, you should have a good understanding of discounted cash flow analysis to understant this book. I would recommend Essentials of Investing, which is a text book, but a good one.
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Summary: Investment Valuation - University Edition
Review: In his book, Aswath Damodaran sets out to explain how assets (both real and financial) are valued using for means to aid the reader in his or her understanding: 1. To cover the different approaches that can be taken to value assets
2. To provide a framework to decide which approach is most appropriate for valuing a particular asset
3. To provide examples of how particular assets are valued
4. To make each approach self-contained, although not entirely independent of one another One the whole, the author succeeds in his attempt to demonstrate how someone can approach asset valuation. For the most part the author approaches the valuation process from the foundation of determining the present value of all future cash flows from an asset. It is the sum of the present values of the expected future cash flows that determines the asset's worth. While the author successfully applies the principles of asset valuation in the book, a number of shortcomings make this book less than ideal for use in a course on security analysis. After introducing the reader to the approaches he plans to cover in the book, the author launches into a discussion of the relationship between the risks of owning an asset and the returns expected from the asset in chapter 3. This chapter includes an explanation of the Capital Asset Pricing Model, one of the foundations of modern finance theory. Such a rapid exposure to modern finance may leave readers wondering if they are in over their heads. Normally, such discussions are left for a later chapter after a discussion of financial statements and ratio analysis. Furthermore, the author tackles the estimation of discount rates without first providing us with a discussion of the financial instruments that are sold in the marketplace whose costs of financing typically compose the discount rate. Still, the book is worthwhile to read for those who are already familiar with the concepts of finance and the time value of money and who want to learn more about how assets are valued. The book also can be used in an upper-level finance class devoted to asset valuation.
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Summary: ^This is a "value for money " textbook in valuation
Review: This is without doubt the best book on valuation since Graham and Dodd. It thoroughly explains the valuation process from the ground up with simplicity,intuitively and with just the right amount of math.All that one needs to get enchanted by this gifted teacher and writer is commonsense and an understanding of basic school level math. However, I feel that the chapters on measuring growth as well as relative valuation were a bit skimpy. Dr. Damodaran has excellently covered some of these areas in the working papers available on his website. Together, his website and this book present the most powerful learning source that I have found in this fascinating area.
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Summary: Disappointed
Review: Unfortunately this book has been selected as one of our reading materials for a certain examination I am currently studying for. The worked examples in the book are not always clear which is fair enough, as it is not the first such book. Normally this problem is ironed out by working thru the set problems at the back of each chapter. What is very DISAPPOINTING about this text is that it is the only one in our entire syllabus of reading materials that does not have a Solutions Manual to help with our studying. Mr Damodaran has not bothered making the effort to produce one it seems.
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Summary: Potentially Excellent Book
Review: While this is an excellent book on valuing assets using discounted cashflows (DCF), there's scant material dedicated to other valuation methods. Maybe Aswath writes about these subjects in another book, but for completeness at least a chapter or two could've been written about relative valuation, especially considering that most all analysts today use multiples and the like to value stocks. If you want to learn more about DCF valuation including how to calculate free cash flow for various situations, this is a good book (even considering the errors). If instead you'd like to learn about several different valuation methods, then this book falls short.
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